In The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe, Heather Mac Donald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, offers a scathing, data-driven account of the misguided and sometimes malicious attacks on the law enforcement community that are spreading like kudzu across the country—and of their consequences. Indeed, as I write this, reports out of San Diego of another officer being killed and another seriously wounded are flashing across the screen.[1] This kind of event has become all too commonplace. At the same time, rates of violent crime are creeping upwards in many of our largest cities after a decades-long decrease.

The public should be, but too often is not, horrified by spectacles such as Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists in St. Paul, Minnesota marching in the streets yelling, “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon”;[2] or BLM protestors in New York City chanting, “What do we want? Dead Cops! When do we want it? Now!”;[3] or a message posted by the African American Defense League urging its followers to “hold a barbeque” and “sprinkle Pigs Blood!”;[4] or the Facebook posting by a man in Detroit following the slaying of five Dallas police officers which read, “All lives can’t matter until black lives matter. Kill all white cops.”[5] One would think that, in any civilized society, such sentiments would be universally condemned as barbaric. Instead, such deplorable rhetoric is met with sympathy and tolerance by some on the Left.[6] One can acknowledge, as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich did recently, that “[i]f you are a normal white American, the truth is you don’t understand being black in America and you instinctively under-estimate the level of discrimination and the level of additional risk.” But one should also acknowledge, as Gingrich did, that, from the perspective of the police, “[e]very time you walk up to a car you could be killed. Every time you go into a building where there’s a robbery you can be killed.”[7] The hateful rhetoric quoted above only serves to incite violence, and, to put it mildly, generates more heat than light.

Yet some elected officials act more like rabble-rousing community organizers fanning the flames of racial tension, perhaps inadvertently, rather than acting like responsible public officials seeking to restore calm and respect for law and order.[8] Racial tensions in this country are clearly on the rise. A new Rasmussen poll indicates that 60% of likely voters think race relations have gotten worse since Barack Obama became president, up from 42% in late 2014,[9] and African Americans are far more likely to believe that they are treated unfairly by the police than whites.[10]

While, no doubt, there may be some police officers who harbor racist thoughts and tendencies—which is likely the case with every profession—that number is, I strongly suspect, very small and diminishing rapidly over time. And, of course, some police officers do engage in misconduct, occasionally with deadly consequences. Earlier this year, five New Orleans police officers pleaded guilty in connection with the killings that took place on Danziger Bridge in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (including one officer who pleaded guilty to covering up the misdeeds),[11] and video footage showed a South Carolina police officer shooting and killing a clearly unarmed man who was running away from him.[12] And many people (black and white) can recount stories in which they were treated rudely, perhaps unjustifiably so, by police officers. Do BLM protestors have a point? Yes, although their tactics and rhetoric are often inconducive to fostering improved relations between the police and the communities they serve. Clearly some police officers have reacted to tense situations with excessive force, most likely the result of inadequate training[13] rather than racism, which sometimes results in a tragic outcome. Of course, when police officers do use excessive force or commit an unjustified homicide, the matter should be investigated, with officers encouraged to come forward to say what happened, which may require something of a cultural change within the law enforcement community. And there should be consequences, up to and including criminal prosecution against those involved and those who attempt to cover up what happened, as happened recently in New Orleans and in New York City in the Abner Louima case.[14]

To hear some protestors, though, one would think that most police officers are card-carrying members of the Ku Klux Klan who run around indiscriminately shooting young black men. Indeed, every incident in which a black citizen is shot by a white police officer becomes part of the ongoing narrative of racist-cops-running-rampant, even when it is definitively established beyond peradventure that the shooting was justified, as was the case when Officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Long after it was clear that Brown had attacked Wilson and was grabbing for his gun and that the whole “Hands up, don’t shoot!” story was built on a pack of lies,[15] Officer Wilson was drummed out of the police force,[16] Jesse Jackson decried the fact that Brown’s “killer walked away,”[17] and Michael Brown’s mother (whose personal grief is, of course, understandable) was invited to the stage at the Democratic National Convention.[18]

Mac Donald chronicles the events in Ferguson, including the ensuing riots, which have been repeated to devastating effect in other cities following police-citizen confrontations. She argues that the increasing hostility toward—and murder of—police officers has led to a “Ferguson Effect” in which police officers in some communities are standing down by cutting back on proactive policing particularly in high crime areas out of fear for their safety or of being falsely accused of racism, which is, in turn, leading to more crime.[19]

While some question whether the Ferguson Effect is real,[20] there is considerable support for the phenomenon. As a veteran Boston police officer recently stated, “Sometimes we feel like our hands are tied behind our backs and people are out to get us.”[21] Although reluctant to use the term “Ferguson Effect,” FBI Director James Comey admitted to being deeply concerned about the uptick in violence in many of our inner cities and stated that he has “a strong sense that some part of the explanation is a chill wind blowing through American law enforcement over the last year. And that wind is surely changing [police] behavior.”[22] After analyzing data from ten cities that saw a 33% increase in homicides in 2015 and which have large African American populations, Richard Rosenfeld, a well-respected criminologist who was initially skeptical of the existence of the Ferguson Effect, now says that “[t]he only explanation that gets the timing right is a version of the Ferguson effect,” which is now his “leading hypothesis” to explain the dramatic increase in crime.[23]

Are law enforcement officers nervous? No doubt, and for good reason. Tensions are high. According to Donald Mihalek of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, forensic studies have established that a suspect with a gun in his waistband can draw and fire his weapon in 0.8 seconds, faster than the time it takes for an officer to respond.[24] Moreover, Mac Donald contends, “an officer’s chance of getting killed by a black assailant is 18.5 times higher than the chance of an unarmed black person getting killed by a cop.”[25] When police officers in tense and unknown circumstances hesitate to act, they die.[26]

Fearing for their safety, officers in major cities are increasingly patrolling in pairs,[27] and in Baltimore, where crime rates have shot through the roof (murders have increased by 63% in 2015), police officers have quit in large numbers.[28] Who can blame them? Through August 1, 2016, firearms-related killings of law enforcement officers are up a staggering 70% over this period last year (from 20 to 34)[29] and ambush killings are up nearly 400% (3 to 14),[30] according to data compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. In 2014, law enforcement officers were assaulted 15,725 times, resulting in 13,824 injuries;[31] those numbers are likely up too this year. While these figures have been worse in years past,[32] they are, nonetheless, deeply disturbing. And while there may be other factors contributing to the recent upsurge in violent crime—such as the heroin epidemic and the violence that has ensued as Mexican drug cartels and affiliated gangs compete for new customers and territories[33]—any hesitancy by police officers to engage in discretionary proactive law enforcement efforts will only serve to exacerbate an already bad situation.

Unfortunately, the facts seem to bear this out. Homicide rates in 56 large U.S. cities were up approximately 17% in 2015 over 2014 (much more in some cities), the largest increase in a quarter century.[34] Homicide rates have continued to rise at an alarming rate during the first half of 2016; they are up another 15% in 51 large cities that have reported data, according to the Major Cities Chiefs Association.[35] While some cities, such as Milwaukee, have seen declines, others such as Chicago have seen dramatic increases (316 homicides in the first half of 2016, compared to 211 in the first half of 2015).[36] And it’s not just homicides that are up in the first half of this year; there have been more than 600 more non-fatal shootings, over 1,000 more robberies, and nearly 2,000 more aggravated assaults compared to the first half of last year.[37] Again, violent crime rates are still substantially below where they were in the 1960s through the early 1990s, but this reversal is quite dramatic, and the trend is quite alarming. What is needed to combat crime in communities of color is more of a police presence, not less.

If the body count is racking up in many of our inner cities, it is not because police officers are wantonly shooting black people; it is because black people, predominantly black men, are shooting each other. As Mac Donald correctly notes, “young black men commit homicide at nearly ten times the rate of young white and Hispanic males combined,” and their victims are overwhelmingly other black residents who live in their communities. In Chicago, for instance, in 2015, 2,460 African American people were shot (nearly seven each day), compared to only 78 white people (one every 4.6 days); in 2011 (the last year for which data was released by the Chicago police), 71% of those committing murder were black and 75% of murder victims were black.[38] Homicide is now the number one cause of death among African Americans between the ages of 1 and 44.[39] And, Mac Donald adds, “until the black crime rate comes down, police presence is going to be higher in black neighborhoods, increasing the chance that when police tactics go awry, they will have a black victim.”

As Mac Donald points out, nobody on the Left seem to want to talk about how the crime problem in our inner cities has been exacerbated by, among other things, rampant drug use, high dropout rates, and the breakdown of the family structure, where over 70% of African American children are now born to single mothers.[40] Mac Donald also notes that nobody wants to talk about the fact that the people who benefit the most from aggressive policing are law-abiding African Americans who live in the inner cities and are trying to lead decent lives, but are afraid to go out at night, let their children play outside, or go to work. These same people also lose much-needed goods, services, and jobs because entrepreneurs refuse to open businesses in crime-plagued communities; as Mac Donald reminds us, “Lowered crime is a precondition to economic revival, not its consequence.” Any dialogue between the police and local community leaders ought to acknowledge and address these issues too if any real progress is likely to occur.

The War on Cops is not without its flaws. There were times (several actually) where I found Mac Donald’s rhetoric too acerbic, and she makes some arguments with which I am sympathetic but not in complete agreement. For example, she is vehemently opposed to the criminal justice reform movement (“America does not have an incarceration problem; it has a crime problem.”), whereas I have written[41] and spoken[42] in favor of some forms of criminal justice reform. Mac Donald states that those who favor criminal justice reform do so because they contend, falsely, that our country has a “mass incarceration” problem or because the criminal justice system is suffused with racism—neither of which I believe. Nonetheless, Mac Donald’s views on this topic, as on all others she covers, are as thoughtful and articulate as they are provocative.

Law enforcement officers have a difficult and dangerous job to do. As former President George W. Bush said at the recent memorial service honoring the five slain Dallas law enforcement officers, “Most of us imagine if the moment called for [it], that we would risk our lives to protect a spouse or a child. Those wearing the uniform assume that risk for the safety of strangers. They and their families share the unspoken knowledge that each new day can bring new dangers.”[43]

We should never forget it and should honor and support those whose job it is “to swallow the sorrows of humanity—from the banal to the truly tragic—and to return to work the next day and do it all over again.”[44] As Heather Mac Donald points out time and again in The War on Cops, things are bad. They could, however, get much worse. After all, Mac Donald notes, “The trend of increasing crime rests on firmer statistical evidence than does the claim that we are living through an epidemic of racist police killings.”

29 November 2016

Three weeks after the US presidential election, the political crisis triggered by the initiative to recount the vote in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania—three states that helped ensure Trump’s victory over Clinton—is escalating. This initiative coincides with the continued growth of Hillary Clinton’s lead in the popular vote, which now stands at more than 2.2 million. This is, by far, a historically unprecedented margin for a candidate who did not also win in the Electoral College.

Jill Stein, the presidential candidate of the Green Party, initiated the recount campaign last week following a media report featuring University of Michigan professor and cyber security expert J. Alex Halderman. Using right-wing arguments to legitimize the recount effort in the eyes of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party—which did not intend to contest the election results—Halderman claims that a team he leads found persuasive evidence that electronic voting machines in these three states may have been hacked by Russia, a statement that he repeated in an affidavit supporting Stein’s petition for a recount in Wisconsin.

On Saturday, the Clinton campaign announced that it would participate in the process begun by Stein. Trump responded on Sunday by not only denouncing the recount but also charging, without any factual substantiation, that he also won the popular vote if the “millions” of illegal votes for Clinton were discounted.

The demand for a recount is a legitimate political response to a situation in which the votes in the states in question were particularly close (a Trump margin of 22,000 in Wisconsin, 10,000 in Michigan and 68,000 in Pennsylvania).

Much more is involved, however, than a technical procedure in these three states. The recount campaign has exposed political fissures within the ruling elite, complicated efforts to carry out a seamless transition to a Trump administration, and intensified the mood of popular discontent and crisis that has been building since Election Day.

The response of the Obama administration to the recount says a great deal about its indifference toward basic democratic principles. In comments to the New York Times reported on Sunday, a senior White House official insisted on the “overall integrity of the electoral infrastructure,” which ensured results that “accurately reflect the will of the American people.”

This is obviously untrue. The election of Trump does not represent the “will of the people.” He lost the popular vote by a substantial margin. Moreover, Trump campaigned on the basis of demagogic lies, portraying himself as a defender of the working class.

In their rush to embrace Trump, the Democrats, along with the media, are downplaying and covering up the significance of Trump’s popular vote defeat. The Democratic Party is far more worried about provoking opposition among workers and youth than it is about the tactical differences it has with the Republicans and Trump. On basic elements of class policy, the two parties are, as the CIA agent-in-chief Obama put it, “on the same team.”

The Green Party, rather than denouncing the undemocratic character of the election process, is justifying its recount initiative with the claim that Russian hacking may have affected the outcome of the vote. Instead of seeking to raise the democratic consciousness of the voters, the Greens—in a manner typical of capitalist political parties—employ reactionary arguments that are pitched toward the interests of the ruling class. In effect, the Greens are arguing that they are seeking a recount not to prevent Trump from stealing the election, but rather to stop Putin from interfering in American politics.

There is an unstated premise in the Green Party initiative—and Stein has said nothing to contradict this—that the election of Clinton would have spared the United States all the unhappiness that will follow from Trump’s victory. This is an exercise in political deception, which views Trump as some sort of dreadful and accidental departure from the familiar grooves of American democracy.

It does not seem to occur to the Greens that the outcome of the 2016 election is, in objective terms, the expression and outcome of a profound crisis of American society. Even if Trump fell short of Clinton in the popular vote, the fact that he received 62 million votes is a devastating condemnation of everything that the Democratic Party and the Obama administration represent. What level of social distress and dysfunction could lead so many millions of people, including many workers, to give their vote to this reactionary charlatan?

The rise of Trump is the product of twenty-five years of unending war and fifteen years of the “war on terror,” accompanied by historic levels of social inequality and the erosion of basic democratic rights. It is also a verdict on eight years of the Obama administration, whose policies Clinton pledged to continue. In what way would a Clinton presidency contribute to surmounting the economic, political and social crisis that provided the objective impulse for the rise of Trump?

The Greens, far from advancing an alternative to the Democratic Party, are positioning themselves as its most consistent defenders. Backed by a host of organizations that operated around the Democratic Party and supported the Greens in the elections, Stein is seeking to elevate the role of the Green Party as a political instrument of the ruling class in containing and smothering social opposition.

Under conditions of a historic crisis of capitalism, the working class must advance its own perspective and not allow itself to be corralled behind one or another faction of the ruling class and its political representatives.

Whatever the outcome of the recount, the election of 2016 has inaugurated a new period of convulsive political upheavals within the United States and beyond its borders. Even in the very unlikely event that the votes in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania are overturned, who can seriously believe that such an outcome would be accepted by Trump and his most ruthless backers?

There is no easy way out of the crisis of American and world capitalism. The critical question for workers and young people is to break completely with the entire political apparatus of the ruling class and advance an independent response based on a socialist, internationalist and revolutionary program. We urge our readers and supporters to draw the necessary political conclusions from the election of 2016 and join the Socialist Equality Party.

Eleven people were injured Monday on the campus of Ohio State University when a student veered his car onto the sidewalk, leaped out and stabbed several people with a butcher knife, law enforcement officials said. The attacker was shot dead within about a minute by a campus police officer.

Two law enforcement officials identified the suspected attacker as Abdul Artan, 18. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the name had not been made public. The officials said that Mr. Artan was of Somali descent.

Mr. Artan is listed as a logistics management major in Ohio State’s online directory. Officials at Columbus State Community College said Mr. Artan also attended that school and graduated with an associate of arts degree. He was on the Columbus State dean’s list in 2015 and graduated cum laude.

The authorities said on Monday afternoon that they were investigating whether the attack may have been an act of terrorism.

“We believe the threat was ended when the officer engaged the suspect,” said Monica Moll, the university’s director of public safety. “We’re very fortunate that an O.S.U.P.D. officer was there and took quick action, and we believe that injuries were minimized as a result of that.”

Eight of the hospitalized victims were believed to be stable, and another patient in critical condition was expected to survive.

“This was done on purpose,” said Chief Craig Stone of the Ohio State University police. “To go over the curb and strike pedestrians and then get out and start striking with the knife — that was on purpose.”

The attack, initially reported as an “active shooter” by the university, stunned students who were returning to class after Thanksgiving break, leading to a 90-minute shelter-in-place warning and an admonition from campus officials to “Run Hide Fight.”

Haylee Gardiner, a sophomore, said she was on her way to a chemistry lab when the attack happened around 9:50 a.m.

“I saw a bunch of people running, and when they were running, they were screaming and yelling,” said Ms. Gardiner, who scrambled to a residence hall for shelter. “And then all of a sudden, I heard four or five gunshots.”

Sean Cody, 23, from Akron, Ohio, was running late for his philosophy class, and after hearing a loud boom, he sprinted into a building to alert fellow students.

“Then there was a bang, a dust cloud, then shouting and screaming, and people just booking it in every direction,” Mr. Cody said. “Then, 30 seconds, a minute later, there were gunshots.”

During the chaos, students huddled in locked rooms, and some took to Twitter, posting photos from inside barricaded classrooms.

The episode was reported near Watts Hall, a building at the heart of the university’s sprawling Columbus campus that houses materials science and engineering programs. Officials said it was unclear whether a fire alarm at that building earlier Monday was connected to the attack.

Heavily armed SWAT teams swarmed the campus, and at one point could be seen making their way up a stairwell of a nearby parking garage before taking two people away in handcuffs. They were not believed to be suspects.

The episode on Monday was the latest mass-casualty episode on an American college campus. Multivictim shootings at Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois University and California’s Oikos University, among several others, have led colleges nationwide to plan how to respond to an attack. Monday’s instruction to “Run Hide Fight” came from a training program used by Ohio State and other groups for reacting to active shooting situations.

“We prepare for situations like this, but always hope never to have one,” said Michael Drake, Ohio State’s president.

Reviews

Reviews

The statistical effects of the October 28 Letter | Federal Bureau of Investigation - NYT

"Many good questions could and should al-zo be asked when Mr. Comey testifies in the closed session of the House Intelligence Committee next week... Comey's overall "motivations" might be complex and and at the same time simple: the security of the country. The details of these complexities are not easy to read..." - by Michael Novakhov - 4.25.17

Gangs, Intelligence Services, and Politics

M.N.: It would be unforgivably naive to suppose that the U.S. criminal Underworld is not controlled these days by the Russian Mafia, and, in turn, by the Russian Intelligence Services. It would also be unforgivably naive to suppose that there are no messages contained in the various criminal acts, and that there are no connections between the Underworld's recent operations and the present situation in the U.S., including the present investigations. As a matter of facts and the investigative leads, they might hold and provide the most easily accessible clues. Attention, the FBI and the significant others: do access these clues.

Smoke and Fire: The Trumputkins, the Trumpumpkins, "The Tillerson Ultimatum", and bad, bad Assad

By Michael Novakhov: So, the Trump - Putin mysterious marriage is on the rocks... The unresolved issues, whatever, whoever, and however triggers the attention to them and their discussions, have to be resolved: soundly, timely, fundamentally, and the long-term; otherwise they come back and accumulate, and together with the other unresolved issues, snowball and cause the avalanches. Nobody needs this mess, enough snow jobs everywhere... That's what Mishustin thinks...

"If you really want to fight ISIS, look into its origins and essence first." - Fight Against "ISIS"

In the opinion of the great many observers, those "sham" groups are nothing more than the creations and proxies of the Russian Military Intelligence (GRU), formed on the basis of the coalitions of the disaffected ex- Baathist Saddam's military (and first of all, military intelligence officers, historically tied with the GRU), with the "rebels-for-hire", and the Assad's Syrian Intelligence Services, which are also the proxies of the GRU.

"Trumpism" as the "social-political experiment" and the "Gang of Four"

The engineered election of Donald Trump as the U.S. President is the joint operation of the German, Russian, and Israeli Intelligence Services with the major executive and operational role played by the Russian-Jewish Mafia at the head of the International Organized Crime - by Michael Novakhov

Tillerson's Complaint:

"Lavrov won't dance with me..."

Lavrov's Response:

"My mama done tol' me... A man's a two-face..."

Vovchick "The Tarantula", why were you so "loud"?!

For Russia (or any other state), this extraordinary, unusual, demonstrative, primitive, blatant "loudness" was like digging her own grave with regard to the US - Russian relations, especially at the time when their improvement and the relief of sanctions is so desired by them, and no doubts, they would understand this very well. This peculiarity in this affair points to the possible deliberate set-up from the third party... The US - Russia - Germany triangle and the role of the revived German intelligence in it after the WW2 have to be examined under the most powerful microscope, in all their hidden details, and in the historical perspective.

Mike Nova's Shared NewsLinks Review

Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks

Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks

Howl!

The America of my dreams: Shattered. Raped.

The King Trump - by Michael Novakhov

The public prayers for His Majesty's health, wealth, and well-being, and also for the development of his additional intellectual capacities should be held no less than three times a day in all public squares, government offices, courthouses, and the places of worship, and also in all the private and public toilets, with the benefit of generating the taxable and multiple extra-flushes. Hopefully, it will flush out in due time.

The Information Age

All the relevant information at your fingertips: Information is not a commodity for sale but one of the most vital and important inalienable rights. To paraphrase Descartes: "I have access to information therefore I am". ("Information Age" - post of 11.30-21.13 | Image from: Information - Google Images)